Never Cold Call Again -- Challenging The Myth

Joe Heller

How badly do you want to improve your sales?  I'm here with you today to challenge the mystique around prospecting. Using antiquated prospecting practices has brought many sales careers (and companies) to their knees. Unable to reach out and touch qualified prospects, you throw away time money and energy on prospects that DO NOT want to do business with you.

Why are you foolishly wasting your time on things that don't work when you could automatically attract an avalanche of clients?

When you think of prospecting what comes to mind… is it the heart stopping anxiety of cold-calling? What happens when the fear starts to creep in? Do you go into a comatose state and believe that the shear process of cold-calling will mean certain doom? 

I can empathize, and let me tell you why this happens. You’ve been programmed by your mom (that's right, mom) to dread prospecting since birth. Moms have reinforced your resistance to prospecting since the beginning of time by telling you as a child “not to talk to strangers” or something bad will happen.  Not really, but you've got to put the blame on someone…

What is prospecting? Prospecting is more than picking up the phone and calling strangers that you think might be interested in buying your products.  Prospecting is a SYSTEM.

Let’s define the components with-in the sales process. First, there is [personal] branding that distinguishes how you are perceived as an individual by your market and determines your value as an expert within your market. Second and the most important part of the revenue process is prospecting.  Next is marketing, where you stimulate interest with qualified prospects in your market. And finally is the selling element where the relationship is built, and the business is "closed".

Each element interrelates and supports the other.  Prospecting is the Lifeblood Of Sales and without it there are NO sales!  Prospecting is much more than cold calling. In fact if you rely on cold-calling alone, you're sunk. [HINT] Prospecting is s system that involves strategy and tactics; it involves research to gain understanding of want that leads gives you an ability to target high-probability prospects. Finally prospecting is using multiple contact methods inside of your market niche. The secret to successful prospecting is determining which activities work best, tied with measuring the activity to benchmark productivity. Prospecting is a SYSTEM.

Samurai Note: A point to consider -- There is no one way to get thirty customers, however there are thirty ways to get one customer. All thirty methods must be aligned with a congruent message and delivered to your market, building a web that qualified prospects can't escape.

The Samurai Marketing System allows anyone to have predicable, measurable results. When a system is applied to prospecting it unleashes a highly targeted campaign to a market. The system incorporates a message that is valuable plus generates interest and ensures visibility to decision makers from the media used.  The formula is simply Market + Message + Media = Revenue.  These three foundational legs make up the core of the Samurai system.

Market - Are you targeting your highest probability prospects?

[You MUST target your best buyers, and turn them into customers.]

Message - Are you creating "magnetic" interest?

[You MUST speak to their personal wants, and not only to their needs.]

Media - Are you communicating your message how they want to hear it? 

[You MUST sell the way they want and are accustomed to buying the products you sell.]

Samurai Exercise: Why are these three legs so vital for marketing success? Let's look beyond the "legs" and see if you can answer these interconnected questions;

(1) Can you define your prospects greatest fears, the "thing" that keeps them up at night?
(2) Can you describe your prospects day down to every thirty-minute increment? (3) Do you know what your prospects are saying to their spouse or better yet to their partner over a scotch?

If you don't know the answers to these questions; you must to learn more about who your prospects are if you really expect to be successful.
Samurai Note: Do you have a sales/marketing consultant doing work for you? Than ask them these questions and see if they know the answers. If they don't, you've got a decision to make. Do you keep throwing good money away on a consultant who can't possibly help you achieve better results because they don't understand your market?  Remember, the biggest reason products fail to sell is the person who is marketing them doesn't understand the buying motives of the buyers.

Answer these questions and you are 97% further ahead in the selling game than your closest competitor. Now, you must put them into a SYSTEM that makes your prospecting automatic. The Samurai Marketing System keeps your products from falling into the "commodity" abyss. This is where your products fail to stand out and they have to compete solely on price to survive.  If this is the case, you will never own your market and you must take action to build value before the iceberg hits and it's too late.

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About Joe Heller

Joe Heller



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